Danielle Jones is a 23-year-old Miami woman who was savagely beaten last week, allegedly by a man she met on Craigslist in search of a roommate.
One week ago, on Valentine’s Day–also Danielle Jones’s 23rd birthday–she was slashed in her head and face, suffering a traumatic brain injury. She has been in a coma ever since.
Attacked on her 23rd birthday, Danielle Jones had just met her roommate a week earlier on Craigslist. https://t.co/5YN3QgWHmW
— The Sun News (@TheSunNews) February 21, 2016
Aimee Nikolove is the mother of Danielle Jones. She spoke with a Miami NBC News affiliate about her daughter’s attack.
“My daughter’s face is cut up like he was going to take her face off. She has a brain injury and no one knows what the prognosis is,” she said.
According to a GoFundMe page set up to raise funds for the hospital costs Danielle Jones is incurring, she was “bludgeoned, strangled and face mutilated in an attempted murder” on Feb. 14, her 23rd birthday, by her roommate Byron Mitchell, who she had found on Craigslist a week before.
People magazine reports Byron Mitchell was arrested on February 15 and is being held without bond for attempted murder at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Mitchell had reportedly confessed to the attack but claimed that he was acting in self-defense.
The family of Danielle Jones wants people seeking roommates via Craigslist to proceed with extreme caution.
“Bringing attention to this and raise some type of awareness for other people to be careful because I can’t explain in words how hard it is to see her like this,” her cousin, Kaitlin Cabot, says.
"She has scars everywhere": Miami woman in coma after violent attack by Craigslist roommate. https://t.co/Tt9q23DBSs pic.twitter.com/LtAejBba5k
— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) February 20, 2016
“We hold on to hope,” Danielle Jones’s mother added. “It’s in God’s hands, but it’s day six and she hasn’t woken up.”
Hopefully people everywhere will be exceedingly cautious when interacting with anyone they meet via Craigslist. Whether they are seeking a roommate or meeting to make a sale or a purchase, they should always do so in a public place, and never alone.
Surely prayers are being said by people from all over the country for Danielle Jones, in hopes she will wake up soon and eventually make a full recovery from this heinous attack.
